Jan. 28, 2013

NJ Transit officials are considering spending millions of dollars to build a new train storage yard far from Hoboken and the Meadowlands, where about a quarter of its fleet was damaged by superstorm Sandy.

“Congress votes on Monday (today) about Sandy funding. That will have an impact” on the decision, NJ Transit spokesman John Durso Jr. said.

As part of the $1.2 billion that NJ Transit is seeking from the federal government storm relief, $800 million is for “resiliency,” Durso said. That would fund projects such as building a train yard and replacing and raising electrical substations which flooded. NJ Transit also requested $400 million to cover the cost of repairing storm damage and restoring train service.

Two Central Jersey locations being considered are off the busy Northeast Corridor Line: one in an existing Conrail freight yard between Linden and North Rahway and another in County Yard, an Amtrak yard between the New Brunswick and Jersey Avenue stations.

Both locations were mentioned by Kevin O’Conner, NJ Transit rail operations assistant executive director, during a program about superstorm Sandy’s effect on NJ Transit and Amtrak, held earlier this month by the New York Chapter of the Transportation Research Forum.

Both yards could be expanded to accommodate about 300 locomotives and rail cars each, but Durso said plans are still in the preliminary stages, and nothing had been decided.

“A lot hasn’t been finalized, and we’re continuing to work with state and federal officials to focus on making our infrastructure more resilient to withstand future storms like Sandy,” Durso said.

But today’s vote in the U.S. Senate to allocate storm ­recovery aid could be a deciding factor in the plan, Durso said.

The equipment had been stored in two yards that flooded during the storm, in upper Hoboken and at the Meadowlands Maintenance Complex in Kearny.

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After the storm, top NJ Transit officials were criticized for the decision to park trains, including some of the agency’s newest dual-mode locomotives and multilevel rail cars, in the yard at the MMC and in the upper area of Hoboken yard, which flooded during Sandy.

According to FEMA flood maps, the yard in New Brunswick, also known as County Yard, is located close to a flood zone located around a small stream known as Mile Run.

The Linden Yard, which had served the former General Motors assembly plant off Routes 1 and 9, is not in or near a flood zone, according to FEMA maps. It is still used by ConRail.

While investigating the feasibility of the two yards is in the early stages, Durso said NJ Transit will look at potential for flooding at the sites.

“Clearly there were lessons learned because of the storm, such as the MMC floods now,” he said.

James Weinstein, NJ Transit’s executive director, defended the decision because neither location had flooded in the past and that weather forecasts didn’t predict flooding during Sandy. He said NJ Transit officials also decided against storing trains in its Morrisville, Pa., yard because flooding from Hurricane Irene in 2011 stranded equipment on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River.

Transit advocates said there were warnings that the MMC would flood. Former Long Island Railroad planning director Joseph Cliff cited U.S. Department of the Interior Geological Surveys of the MMC that showed it had an elevation of 10 feet, lower than the 11-foot storm surge predicted during Sandy. Other advocates said predictions of flooding from a storm surge were made by the Army Corps of Engineers, which said in 2009 that area of Kearny would flood.

The Linden and New Brunswick locations were chosen because of their proximity to the NEC. Durso said no other locations are currently being considered.